[p2p-research] and my reactions and summary of the cyberocracy paper

[Michel Bauwens]

*Essay: Ronfeldt, David and Varda, Danielle,The Prospects for Cyberocracy
(Revisited)(December 1, 2008).*

*
*

Available at SSRN <http://ssrn.com/abstract=1325809>.


 *Introductory comment:*


**

*(Michel Bauwens:)
*

*
*

David Ronfeldt has updated his seminal 1992 essay on cyberocracy, which
offered at a time a pioneering and refreshing vision on the new influence of
the networks, and predicted the rise of a cyberocracy, a new elite of the
well-connected, but without versing in a prediction that it would be a 'new
class'.

David, now retired, has co-written an update with Danielle Varda, which, in
my opinion, is perceptive and worth reading but at the same time disappoints
as it seems to totally overlook the specific emergence of peer production
and peer governance. Their notions of networked governance and the
nexus-state merely look at the new configuration of old actors, i.e. state,
markets and nonprofits/NGO's, and they do not at all see the new forms of
production and organization emerging outside the already existing formal
civil society. In a note, they refer to the p2pfoundation as 'advocating
panarchy', which may be correct though we use the variant concept of peer
governance. However, we do not really advocate it, but rather describe its
emergence, try to understand it and refer to the growing body of research
that examines it. Peer production and peer governance can in no way be
subsumed to NGO's and nonprofits being networked or networking themselves in
new global structures with governments and market players. The new p2p field
is fundamentally different, and of that, I see no trace in this update.


 This is the crux of my critique, in the form of short phrases in between
the following summary.


 *
*

*First the abstract:*

*
*

"*The deepening of the information age will alter the nature of the state so
thoroughly that something new emerges: cyberocracy. While it is too early to
say precisely what a cyberocracy will look like, the outcomes will include
new kinds of democratic, totalitarian, and hybrid governments, along with
new kinds of state-society relations. Thus, optimism about the information
revolution should be tempered by an anticipation of its potential dark side.
This paper reiterates the view of the cyberocracy concept as first stated in
1992, and then offers a postscript for 2008. It speculates that
information-age societies will develop new sensory apparatuses, a
network-based social sector, new modes of networked governance, and
ultimately the cybercratic nexus-state as a successor to the nation-state*."


 The Authors' Intro explains the scope and limitations of the essay:


 "*Recent re-readings of an old paper about cyberocracy (Ronfeldt, 1992)
indicated that many of its points still read well and that the concept might
be worth reiterating. Undertaking a full revision and updating was not
feasible, so we decided to abridge the old paper and then add a postscript
to update selected ideas and observations. This derivative paper is the
result*."


 *Summary and Excerpts:*

*
*

Pages 1 to 39 is a summary of the previous 1992 version of Cyberocracy and
the post-script starts page 40, starting with developments that confirmed
many of the predictions that it contained.


 The author's then go on to discuss four specific areas:


 "*Against this background, this Postscript extends the ideas in the
original paper by engaging in four new speculations about future trends.
These speculations should be added to the original six "next steps" for
research listed earlier.*

*
*

* * The advanced societies are developing new sensory apparatuses that
people have barely begun to understand and use.*

* * A network-based social sector is emerging, distinct from the traditional
public and private sectors. Consisting largely of NGOs and NPOs, its rise is
leading to a rebalancing of state, market, and civil-society forces.*

* * New modes of multiorganizational collaboration are taking shape, and
progress toward networked governance is occurring.*

* * This may lead to the emergence of the nexus-state as a successor to the
nation-state*."


 *Some details:*

*
*

*1. The new sensory apparatuses:*

*
*

"*Many of the new apparatuses reflect the perception of perils. Crime and
terrorism are impelling new installations for watching cityscapes,
monitoring communications, and mapping potential hotspots. But sensor
networks are also being deployed for early warning and rapid response
regarding many other concerns — disease outbreaks, forest protection, bird
migration, and urban electricity spikes, to name a few. In addition,
environmental, human-rights, and other social activists continue to develop
new media — notably, IndyMedia — to keep watch and speed mobilization in
case of a challenge or abuse somewhere, say against the Zapatista movement
in Mexico.88 In a sense, the partisan blogospheres amount to a gigantic,
reactive sensory apparatus in the American body politic*."


 The authors stress that such developments are not just beneficial to large
corporations and business, and recognize the potential of sousveillance:

"*It has become standard fare to speculate that such apparatuses mainly
benefit government and corporate actors, for good and ill. Less noticed, but
we think equally likely and significant, is that the apparatuses will aid
the rise of civil-society actors, by providing networked NGOs and NPOs with
new tools not only for checking on the behavior of government and corporate
actors, but also for participating in collaborative governance schemes with
them. New mechanisms for attracting and combining diverse viewpoints under
the rubric of "collective intelligence" could help foster this.98 So could
the continued advance of principles favoring freedom of information, the
right to communicate, and open access*."


 *2. The emergence of a new social sector*

*
*

I find this part disappointing, as a third nonprofit sector already existed.


 Here's what they have to say:


 "*civil-society actors — NGOs and NPOs — are on the rise. Their numbers are
mounting. The issues they care about — such as the environment, human
rights, privacy, peace, health, poverty, consumer protection, disaster
relief — are intensifying. The roles they play — as watchdogs, advocates,
and service providers — are expanding, as are their abilities to affect the
agendas of state and market actors. Civil-society actors also have a longer
reach than ever; instead of standing alone, the usual case in the past, many
now operate in sprawling collaborative networks that represent the rise of
"global civil society*"."


 They add that:


 "*the key factor behind the emergence of this sector is the rise of network
forms of organization and related doctrines, strategies, and technologies.
These enable myriad dispersed, often small actors to communicate,
coordinate, and act conjointly as never before, without a central command,
while preserving their autonomy. Network forms have existed for ages — they
are as old as hierarchies and markets — but they are only now coming into
their own as a major societal organizing principle. To function well on a
large scale, multiorganizational networks require complex information and
communications systems — even more than do hierarchies and markets — and
those systems are finally afforded by the Internet and other new digital
technologies. The continued rise of networks as a distinct mode of
organization, plus the new strength this is imparting to NGOs and NPOs, is
one of the most important trends affecting the prospects for cyberocracy
since the original paper was written.*"


 What is incomplete in this picture is the emergence of peer-governed
civil-society networks, that do not take the form of NGO's or nonprofits,
(or for whom the legal face is accessory, as it is for us at the P2P
Foundation). Surely that is the great innovation of the last decade, and NOT
just the growth of already existing organized nonprofits.


 *3. Progress Toward "Networked Governance" and "Government by Network"*

*
*

"*To this end, networked governance is emerging in several arenas. It is a
goal of regional integrationists in the European Union, where "joined-up
government" and "multilevel governance" have become abiding themes. In North
America — the United States, Canada, and to a degree, Mexico — the emphasis
is less on regional integration and mainly on constructing collaborative
networks that span the public, private, and nonprofit (social) sectors in
selected issue areas, mostly within but also between these nations. In
addition, networked governance is not just a matter for governments. It is
progressing, albeit hesitantly, in the efforts of some corporations and
civil-society NGOs to collaborate on matters of mutual concern, partly as a
reflection of rising ideals about corporations having social
responsibilities*."


 This section offers a useful overview of networked governance concepts,
noting two families of interpretations, depending on 'narrow' or 'broad'
definitions of what a network is. But here again, this update disappoints as
peer governance and the reality of the governance of peer production
networks seem totally to escape their attention.


 The authors write, and it is easy to see their top-down bias:


 "*As networked governance goes, so go the prospects for cyberocracy. This
may take decades to unfold, for it is not just a matter of reinventing
government, reforming bureaucracy, and wiring the state with new computers —
the hierarchy-altering notions of the 1990s. It is mainly a matter of
getting a potent new form of organization right. And getting information-age
networks right is as difficult and complex a job as getting hierarchies or
markets right — it's a job for generations.*

*
*

*Networked governance depends on government and nongovernmental actors
collaborating better. Learning to work with and through NGOs and NPOs to
create new governance schemes for addressing social problems is the cutting
edge of policy and strategy. And multiorganizational networks — not
hierarchies or markets — offer civil-society actors the most appealing mode
for partnering with government actors*."


 All of this is of course true, and even important, but they also miss the
most important story of the age.


 *4. Emergence of the Nexus-State:*

*
*

"*What will make the nexus-state so transformative is the rise of
"government by network." But as discussed above, our notion of it differs
somewhat from others. Yes, as many analysts reiterate, it involves linking
actors from anywhere into web-like collaborations. But that notion alone is
so broad it can encompass matters that are better viewed as variants of
government by hierarchy or by market, or as hybrids.122 In our view, the
essence of "government by network" is — and increasingly will be — recourse
to the NGOs and NPOs comprising the network-oriented social sector discussed
earlier, in ways that are distinct from government by hierarchy or by
market. Outsourcing to private businesses pertains mainly to "government by
market," though some analysts presently categorize it as "government by
network.*"


 *Finally, if not first of all, the nexus-state will rest partly on the most
ancient mode of governance: "government by tribe" (and clan). All states do
this to some extent, for example by favoring some aristocratic families over
others in past eras, by drawing on figures from "the establishment" in
modern eras, and in all eras by benefiting business cronies and ideological
partisans.123 The nexus-state will not — indeed, cannot — be immune to
government by tribe; it is too normal and useful to discard. But what will
distinguish the nexus-state is the formation of a new generation of
professional cadres — a kind of memetic tribe with its own convictions and
esprit de corps — of forward-, outward-looking cybercrats who believe in
advancing government by network, even more than by hierarchy and market. And
they will appear in all sectors, replacing older generations of
administrators, managers, bureaucrats, and technocrats.*

*
*

*A nexus is a juncture, an intersection, a site of linkage and convergence.
It is a meeting-place for communication and coordination. It may be a
clearinghouse for initiatives that take place elsewhere, but it may also be
a center where initiatives are taken. The term normally means a network is
present, not a hierarchy or a market — but a nexus can also involve
hierarchies and markets (not to mention tribes). This definitional range
assures the term's appropriateness here.*

*The nexus-state, then, will be centered around what states are always
centered around: a set of hierarchical institutions. Yet it will have all
four modes of governance at its disposal, and it will be deeply embedded in
society — more so than older types of the state. Moreover, that society will
be characterized as much by the information-age network as by the other,
older forms — it will have a networked sensory apparatus and a network-based
social sector. Thus the nexus-state will be more robust and resilient than
previous types of the state, but it will also be more circumscribed and
interwoven with society. It will have more instruments for wielding control,
but its strength will also stem from its capacity for decontrol to other
actors. It will have to be effective at both orchestrating and delegating —
at both knowing more and doing less by itself, in part because it attracts
reliable private-enterprise and civil-society partners who know even more.
In a sense, to use metaphors currently in play, the cybercratic nexus-state
may thus be both "thicker" and "hollower" than the modern nation-state has
been.*

*
*

*Furthermore, the nexus-state may well be more democratic, but some
instances may also turn out to be more authoritarian than ever — all in
innovative ways that we just don't foresee yet. Indeed, the idea of
"consultative dictatorship" enabled by advanced information technology
continues to have stronger allure than liberal democracy in parts of the
world.*

*
*

*These points may sound contradictory, but the history of social evolution
bears them out*. "


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